Oh Noes, The "Must Not Cross" Climate Tipping Point

Greens are fretting that we may be about crash through their arbitrary 1.5C global warming “limit”. But what will they do, when nothing bad happens?

As Earth Swelters, Global Warming Target in Danger

The Earth is so hot this year that a limit for global warming agreed by world leaders at a climate summit in Paris just a few months ago is in danger of being breached.

In December, almost 200 nations agreed a radical shift away from fossil fuels with a goal of limiting a rise in average global temperatures to well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times while “pursuing efforts” for 1.5°C (2.7°F).

But 2016 is on track to be the hottest year on record, also buoyed by a natural El Niño event warming the Pacific, according to the U.N.’s World Meteorological Organization. The first six months were a sweltering 1.3°C above pre-industrial times.

“It opens a Pandora’s box,” said Oliver Geden, of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. “The future debate about temperature targets will be about overshoot.”

Many climate scientists say the Paris targets are likely to be breached in the coming decades, shifting debate onto whether it will be possible to turn down the global thermostat.

Leaving aside the increasingly likely possibility that temperatures will continue falling back to average, or possibly further, I actually enjoy when we cross hyped up green lines in the sand.

The green movement has a terrible problem with “tipping points” and “limits”. If they set the bar too high, catastrophe is way to distant for anyone to care about. Greens set the tipping point bar too low, their credibility is damaged when nothing bad happens.

The green tipping point dilemma reminds me something horror fiction author Stephen King once said, in his story and essay collection Danse Macabre;

What’s behind the door or lurking at the top of the stairs is never as frightening as the door or the staircase itself. And because of this, comes the paradox: the artistic work of horror is almost always a disappointment. It is the classic no-win situation. You can scare people with the unknown for a long, long time (the classic example, as Bill Nolan also pointed out, is the Jacques Tourneur film with Dana Andrews, Curse of the Demon but sooner or later, as in poker, you have to turn your down cards up. You have to open the door and show the audience what’s behind it. And if what happens to be behind it is a bug, not ten but a hundred feet tall, the audience heaves a sigh of relief (or utters a scream of relief) and thinks, “A bug a hundred feet tall is pretty horrible, but I can deal with that. I was afraid it might be a thousand feet tall”….

Stephen King himself sadly appears to support climate initiatives. We can but hope that one day the great writer will recognise a poorly constructed narrative and badly executed plotline for what it is.

112 thoughts on “Oh Noes, The "Must Not Cross" Climate Tipping Point”

shifting debate onto whether it will be possible to turn down the global thermostat…..
They have been saying all along that it is.
Personally, I hope they come to the conclusion that it’s not…and just shut up

The Greens will never come to the conclusion that it’s not possible to turn down the global thermostat. That would require them to accept that humans are not the primary cause of warming in the first place. Their whole religion and their reason for being is to blame humans for everything bad that happens on the planet. If future temperatures go up, they will blame it on countries failing to keep the targets agreed to in Paris. If temperatures go down, they will either give all the credit to the success of the Paris climate summit, or they will continue to claim that the heat is hiding in the deep oceans ready to spring and wreak havoc at any moment. The best we can hope for is that the public gets tired of hearing them constantly cry wolf and chooses to ignore them.

Huhne,
Of course Cnut (or Canute as he was called when I was younger) was smarter than the Greens. He was taking his flattering courtiers down a peg by showing that no matter how powerful he was he was not all-powerful and he could not stop the tide.

When we talk of hottest month or hottest year, we must analyse what are the components that were contributors for such condition as the global average temperature rise is not global warming related fossil fuel. Without such analysis, to say hottest has practically no meaning. Global temperature curve is a sum and total of such highly localised and regionalised / globalised factors. Part of natural variability component is also play an important role.

Summary
The Western world’s leading climatologists have confirmed recent reports of a detrimental global climate change. The stability of most nations is based upon a dependable source of food, but this dependability will not be possible under the new climatic era. A forecast by the University of Wisconsin projects that the earth’s climate is returning to that of the neo-boreal era (1600-1850) – An era of drought, famine, and political unrest in the western world. …
‘A study of climatological research as it pertains to intelligence problems’ ~ CIA 1974

So, industrial man is causing detrimental climate change? If that is true, then how can the climate be returning to an era of pre-industrial climate change? Once again the premise makes no sense. One could say that climate changes and often goes in cycles. Our research says that world climate may be cycling back to a past time that was fraught with drought
, famine and political unrest.

John K
1974 – the CIA words you quote – was about the high point of the ‘Coming Ice Age’ scare.
Look at the Jethro Tull Album ‘Stormwatch’ from 1979 – the popsters take a year or three to catch up with ‘fashionable’ thought, I guess.
A year or two from now, expect 1D to bring out a download on the Perils of Plantfood.
Auto – not one whit /sarc, I promise.

Steven,
“So, industrial man is causing detrimental climate change?”
It seems to me that report was warning of the perils of a return to what is now treated as a sort of “safe space” by the CAGW pushers. The once bad old days (pre-industrial) have been recast as the good old days we all must sacrifice mightily to avoid getting away from . . In that sense, the ‘they’ NW Sage spoke of were wrong from day one, though it only becomes obvious as their “tipping point” gets closer to the one-time opposite “tipping point”, back into a climate state they then called the neo-boreal era.

The following article of mine Titled “2nd Green Revolution must be a sustainable system” was published on 11 August 2016 edition of newly started Hindi Daily News paper from Meerut “NEWS FIRST TODAY” in page 8 under “Editorial & Opinion”. — this a part of Recommendation Chapter of my book, which is now with the publisher.
2nd Green Revolution must be a sustainable system
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy Agricultural Scientist
The traditional agriculture was soil and climate driven farming system that encompasses the animal husbandry. It provided socio-economic, food and nutrient security with the healthy food. Those were the “Golden Days” in the history of farming. It was an environment-friendly system and was highly successful & sustainable. No pollution, no worry about seeds and fertilizer adulteration as they used good grain as seed and compost of farmyard manure and green manure as fertilizer.
Following growth in population the food production balance got disrupted and in order to find a solution to evergrowing problem, 60s saw the chemical inputs technology and genetically modified seed technology entering India in the form of much eulogised Green Revolution Technology. With the help of those technologies, food security was achieved up to an extent. But, it came at huge costs with disastrous impact on environment. The Green Revolution increased the production substantially in terms of quantity but failed to achieve the quality of traditional agriculture in terms of food and fodder. The technology includes high yielding seeds, chemical inputs (fertilizers & pesticides, insecticides, herbicides, etc) and irrigation. However, newly developed high yielding seeds used in ‘Green Revolution’ created new problems hitherto unknown to farmers. Use of chemicals in the crop management caused the cost of production jump several folds. Here entered government’s input subsidy, a huge component.
Studies on paddy/rice production figure of 70s & 80s in Andhra Pradesh revealed that the traditional paddy under irrigation yielded 1300 kg/ha; by adding high yielding seed this increased by 500 kg/ha; and by adding chemical fertilizers the yield level rose further by 2000 kg/ha. That means total yield achieved was 3800 kg/ha under farmers’ fields. This was far less than research station yields of 5000 to 6000 kg/ha. The present average yields of farmers’ field are 2600 – 2800 kg/ha as the yield curve flattened since 1984-85. Only increase in area under irrigation contributed to additional increase in production after 1984-85.
Studies clearly reflect that high yielding seeds introduced during and after the Green Revolution were tailored to chemical fertilizers under irrigation. This severely affected dry-land agriculture that constituted around 60% of the cultivated land. This lead dry-land farmers migrating to urban areas as the dry-land agriculture with high input costs became unsustainable and non-remunerative.
Forty years later, genetically modified (GM) seed entered into Indian agriculture system. Most innovations in this have been profit-driven rather than need-driven. Global seed industry is controlled by four western MNCs hands and at the same time GM seed industry is in one MNC’s hands. The GM technology responds to the need of GM companies to intensify farmers’ dependence upon seeds protected by the so-called intellectual property rights, which conflicts directly with the age-old rights of farmers to reproduce, share or store seeds. In fact, to get overnight profits, the Indian seed companies changed their high yielding seed into GM seed and ensured that nonGM seed is “not sold in the market”. This has resulted markets flooding with spurious/ adulterated GM seed varieties under different names.
One such GM Seed, Bt-cotton, is in use since 2002-03. Use of chemical fertilizers and irrigation increased the area under cotton under GM seed and reduced the area under non-GM seed without much yield advantage. The Bt-cotton area during 2002-03 to 2010-11 increased from 0.04 Lha to 17.95 Lha in Andhra Pradesh and at the same time area under non-Bt-cotton reduced from 8.03 Lha to 0.22 Lha. At all India level area under cotton increased from 7.667 Mha to 11.161 Mha. During the same period the yields increased from 212.5 to 545.7 kg/ha in Bt- and 229.1 to 919.5 kg/ ha in non-Bt at Andhra Pradesh level. At all India level cotton yields increased from 302 in 2002-03 to 554 in 2007-08 and there onwards declined to 475 kg/ha in 2010-11. That is, the productivity has been stagnant for the past five years. The yield increase is associated with the high yielding cotton seed, both GM & non-GM, to chemical inputs and irrigation.
Newer technologies were portrayed as a solution to all human problems, especially the problem of hunger and poverty forgetting their impact on the environment. However, the use of chemical inputs reduced the quality of food and created bad impact on environment. This “western profit driven” chemical input technology was found to be more dangerous on longterm, over the short-term gains. It has destroyed the environment drastically- soil degradation & salinization, health hazards to human, animal & plant life with air, water, soil & food pollution. The pollution related health hazards necessitated the introduction of drug manufacturing industry and establishment of hospitals who in turn cause air and water pollution, turning this into a vicious circle. Even with all these ill effects, the yield growth curve has flattened after 1980-85.
In fact, the chemical input technology is like “scratching the head with fire”. When this technology was introduced nobody knew that this technology is going to create such environmental catastrophe. Even the Nobel Prize awarding organization was not aware of this while awarding Nobel Prize to Norman Borlaug.
We must not forget the fact that GM technologies also work under chemical inputs -irrigation only and thus the above discussed impacts apply to GM seed technology also. In addition, GM seed technology presents several other impacts on biodiversity, contamination, re-generation, herbicide-tolerant weeds, new pests-diseases etc. Because of some of these, in USA & China GM crops were not permitted to grow in some zones. In India GM crops are grown everywhere including prohibited zones. There are several other aspects like food safety and ethics. India has no mechanism to study such aspects. Thus, with the GM seed technology, the cure has become more dangerous than the disease
To achieve sustainable agriculture, therefore, the governments must change the policy on agriculture. The policy must include low input costs, pollution free quality food technology such as organic inputs under cooperative farming setup. This not only brings down the cost of production but also reduces drastically man hours spent on procuring basic inputs by individual farmers, improves the utilization of natural resources and thus helps to reach sustainable agriculture.
In fact progressive farmers with traditional wisdom have developed technologies and achieved far higher yields than the research station yields and received national and international awards/rewards and recognition but neither the government nor the scientists showed any interest, though there is a mechanism in government departments, to stabilize that technology and provide packages to farmers to achieve environmental friendly progress in agriculture. The states and central governments must allocate sufficient funds to collect traditional inventions of progressive farmers and integrate these in traditional technology to achieve the 2nd Green Revolution that safeguards the environment and provide food safety, biosafety, food & nutrient security; and protect the farmers from committing suicides and provide socio-economic security.
Also, as proposed in new Food Security Bill, distribution of locally produced foods can be given under PDS by which the food subsidy component will come down substantially. This shall also reduce wastage and loss in FCI storage facilities and transportation.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy

Dr. Reddy, This article is nothing but an oversimplified “Golden Age” fallacy. You state that the pre-1960s were some golden era in India, where everyone had high quality food, and there was no pollution. Nothing can be farther from the truth.
Why do you think India’s (and the whole world’s) population was growing (as you mentioned). Better nutrition and better medicine. So, by definition, your assertion can not be true. Food production did not improve due to higher populations. Population increased due to improved food production.

jeff in calgary — Rise in population was associated with better transport facilities. Take the case of Ethiopia, on one side [Red sea side] with low rainfall, starvation deaths and on the otherside [border to Sudan] excellent production but it is affected by war. There is no transport mechanism to transport surplus food to deficit food areas with poor rood network and war. In India poor transport system affected the people prior to 60s but not due to food none availability. With PL-480 wheat, politicians were benefitted and entered a weed, Perthanium which has spread far and wide reducing the agriculture area — One former DG of ICAR who joined GM group after retirement says this could be eradicated with UN banned system “Terminator” like scratching head with fire. It is still a menace.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy

The total subsidies [food & fertilizer] have increased from Rs. 12,158 crore [10 lakhs is one million; 100 lakhs or 10 million is one crore] in 1990-91 to Rs. 1,29,243 crore in 2008-09, an increase by 10.6 times. The fertilizer subsidy has increased from Rs. 4,389 crore in 1990-91 to Rs. 75,849 crore in 2008-09 representing an increase of over 17 times. The total food subsidy has jumped to Rs. 43,627 crore in 2008-09 from 2,450 crores in 1990-91, about 18-fold increase in less than two decades in absolute terms.
During the nineties (1990-91 to 2000-01), fertilizer subsidy accounted for about 47% of the total subsidies and share of food subsidy was 35.1%. In the 2000s (2001-02 to 2008-09), food subsidy became dominant, accounting for 49.1% of the total subsidy while fertilizer subsidy accounted for 39.5%. However, during the last three years, fertilizer subsidy has taken the largest share and accounted for 58.7% of total subsidies in 2008-09. Around 30-35% subsidy is going in to black market; and now government introduced Aadhaar Card system [like USA social security number] –with my proposal – to control black market in subsidy component. However it is not fully operative as yet.
PDS system was successful with excellent rail based transport system.
According to FAO report, globally around 30% of food produced is going as waste. In India it is around 40-50%. That is, we are wasting natural resources to that extent. Nobody is looking at it.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy

Paul, I feel the same but we need a basic change before it would make any difference. When the cAGW campaign falls on its butt they’ll find something else to waste billions on, maybe another war someplace no one can spell the name of. These folks don’t have productive lives, they feed from the public trough and that’s it.
Some of the scientists, the ones with degrees in something practical, could probably find something useful to do but there isn’t much hope for the rest of them so they’ll just join onto some other popular scam and keep right on going.

Trillions you mean when also accounting for deficit spending to pay for the policy adventures and lower growth resulting from high taxes just to partly keep up with the deficit spending machine. Negative interest rates are also proving not to be a substitute.

The public, after a little fact checking, can see that the greens are worried about a few TENTHS of a degree, when everyone know the daily and yearly temps at home go up and down several tens of degrees, the greens are just spinning their wheels. trying to get anyone to care.

Stephen King himself sadly appears to support climate initiatives. We can but hope that one day the great writer will recognise a poorly constructed narrative and badly executed plotline for what it is.
Or perhaps he will recognize its potential for farce and weave it into a comedic best seller.

Juan S
I don’t think the late, great, Terry Pratchett ever strayed into the horrors awaiting us if temperatures rose by 2,5 degrees Fahrenheit,
But he certainly speared a few receptacles of holy water.
And – a terrific sense of humour, and turn of phrase!
If you haven’t tried Terry – do – oh . . . do do so!

I recently saw “Hillary’s America” by Dinesh D’Souza. What does this have to do with the Climate Wars?
The Climate Hustle is a Con. It is a Great Con.
You never give up the con.
Any crook will tell you, “You never give up the con.”
Every criminal will tell you, “You never give up the con.”
Even when you get caught, never admit, never give in.
Never give up the con.
This is why the alarmists do what they do.
@ Latitude:
No, they will not shut up, no matter how badly we wish they would.
@ NW sage:
No, they will never admit they are wrong, not even a little bit.
They know to never give up the con.

Same thing with 350.org. Their wholepoint of being is gone, which is probably the real reason McKibben cut loose from his creation. 350 also got their Keystone pipeline wish from our dishonest Obama, but the Canadian oilsand operations and development have been far more hurt by the low prices for crude oil due to fracking and the House of Saud Economic War on the frackers.
The inevitability of a climate cooling means that when it comes, generation stations and grid operators are going to be strained to provide the reliable power needed. So the real frightening thing, that isn’t some Hollywood movie, are rolling extended blackouts during a cold snap in winter. The whole green climate scam will collapse once the lights go out.

Climate is that dangerous, unpredictable thing that drove the evolution of man and has kept us alive for 100,000 years. It presents in two forms; too cold and too hot, plus a third, theoretical state of “just right” which can only exist in the past.

As a lay-person, I might assume a 1.5C. rise in a commensurate time-frame is *not* unique in the measurable ages? (Or is it?)
If it’s one of several, so what? …. We’ve been there before and the planet has survived and self-rectified..
If it is unique, let’s hear the so-called Experts hang their hat on the proposition and work from there as to the consequences. .

Since the alarmists always start the rise from the end of the Little Ice Age, an temperature increase of 1.5C would only get us back to the warmest point of the Medieval Warm Period. Which is widely acknowledged as a time of prosperity.
It would still be cooler than Roman Warm period, the Minoan Warm period, and way short of the Holocene Optimum.

1.5 C above an Ice Age is called an Interglacial. Long live the Interglacial. Used to have 115 F temps here in the Mojave Desert during summer. Haven’t seen that for ten years here. Last week, for the middle of summer, highs were in the low 90’s. This is called Spring. But, an unprecented, dangerous tipping point of 100 F has come back today. I am enjoying the last of my evil A/C until Oslama del Presidente Fascismo gets rid of Freon-22. I am thinking if they stop using CO2 in canned sodas and fountain drinks, and start using nitrogen, the climate will stay under control.

Can we guess the future behaviour of these CAGW folk?
If temperatures continue to rise, and the mythical average global temperature exceeds 1.5 degC, will they be overwhelmed with joy that their prediction has actually been achieved? But what if nothing cataclysmic occurs after that?
If temperatures plateau again, so that the “pause” extends beyond 20 years, will they look for other magic heat sinks? All that CO2 must be having an effect, but some other mysterious heat transfer must be occurring.
If average temperatures actually start to decline, and CO2 continues to rise, what will they do then? If we never get to the target tipping point, will they say that the danger has been averted, but is still there?
In all cases, I would suggest that science is going to be the big loser. If the results don’t go their way, a lot of CAGW supporters may shoot the messenger. Humans find that easier to do that than accept that your underlying belief structure was wrong.

In all cases, I would suggest that science is going to be the big loser.

I’ve just started reading Listen Liberal! by Thomas Frank. He points out that all kinds of professional are immune from public criticism. Substitute Climate Scientist for Economist in the following quote.

Leading active members of today’s economics profession … have joined together into a kind of politburo for correct economic thinking. As a general rule – as one might expect from a gentleman’s club – this has placed them on the wrong side of every important policy issue, and not just recently but for decades. They predict disaster where none occurs. They deny the possibility of events that then happen … No one loses face, in this club, for having been wrong. No one is disinvited from presenting papers at later annual meetings. And still less is anyone from the outside invited in.

The only punishable sin for such professionals is rocking the boat.
Thomas Frank has put into words what I have long believed. The Democrat party has quit standing up for the little guy. They are now the party of the professionals and the professionals are a bunch of out-of-touch, entitled little s**ts.
Climate science isn’t just going to be bad for all science, it’s going to be bad for all professions. Respect for various professions is eroding. For instance, nobody has much respect for teachers. I think this phenomenon will spread as people realize how badly they are being misled and ripped off.

CommieBob, the economics group seems highly analogous to that “Journo-list” group from a few years back, wherein “objective” reporters colluded with opinion pundits in quasi-secrecy to help defeat rightist candidates and and get more leftists elected.
In the teaching profession, of course you have several large teacher’s unions doing the same thing.

Climate changes obviously . That means it doesn’t stay the same and it is either warming or cooling
apparently in cycles extending thousands of years with bumps along the way . The climate fixers
can’t be so delusional that humans are going to shape it to some arbitrary world temperature.
So what if humans add to the warming cycle ? Life on earth has flourished at much higher levels of CO2 before Hollywood actors were zipping around the world trying to lay the newest cool model .
If the pretend Greens claim a warming world is oh so scary and bad they must be advocating for global cooling . Were the plants and animals better off in an ice age ? Humans will adapt so we don’t count .

…Like this one?
World will get too hot for Olympics
By the end of the century most of the world will be too hot to host the Olympics in summer, researchers say.
A study from the University of Auckland has found by 2085 almost 90 per cent of the large cities in the Northern Hemisphere will be so affected by climate change, the temperature and humidity will be too high to safely run a marathon in summer.
The study found only three cities in North America, two in Asia and none in Africa would be considered “low-risk” for outdoor exercise in the future.

Well they had better tell the Kenyans because they will be wasting their time practicing in tropical heat. If it is going to be hotter than that in Toronto I won’t have to move to my tropical hut where I intend to spend my dotage.

I notice that everyone is keeping quite about “Peak Oil”.
I forget when peak oil was going to take place and I seem to remember that there were several dates mooted.
However one cannot fail to notice the world wide prices thats been happening for some time now.
The fact is that an oil shortage or an exhaustion of natural oil/fossil fuel will in reality be preceded by a rapid and probably “unsustainable for users” but “sustainable for the greens and believers”, (so they think) rise in prices.
A drop in prices, of course, means exactly the oppposite. Oil supply is exceeding demand.
Doesn’t sound very peaky to me! 🙂
Of course some of this over supply may be caused by some minority moving out of oil consumption.
Well so long as they are not using tax payers money to do this, I say all power to them. Hope its “sustainable” for them 😉
Cheers
Rogerhttp://www.rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.com

Earlier than that, Ian.
Back in the mid-1800s when Scotland was the World’s leading exporter of petroleum products – derived from oil shale, ironically – there was talk of oil running out.
Interestingly, the increasing use of cheaper petroleum products for lamp oil started the decline of whaling, and so shale oil probably saved the whales.

So “the earth” is so hot this year the greens think something catastrophic is going to happen to the climate.
Down here in the southern part of Australia we have had our coldest winter for perhaps 25 years.
Oh wait a minute – we are in the southern hemisphere, and that doesnt matter.

“The first six months were a sweltering 1.3°C above pre-industrial times …”.
==============================
What a load of tosh.
The current global average temperatures are estimates and no-one knows what the “pre-industrial” global average was, except that it was probably as cold as this interglacial has got.
The Central England surface air temperature series, “the longest existing meteorological record” shows that average summer temperatures have barely moved since 1650:http://www.climate4you.com/images/CentralEnglandTempSince1659%201100pixel.gif

[…] a limit for global warming agreed by world leaders at a climate summit in Paris just a few months ago […]

I’m glad they figured out a way to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5°C. Bless their little hearts.
Now, would these all-powerful World Overlords please turn their attention to limiting my heating and cooling bills to under $60/month?
(While they’re at it, would hurt them any to get my cable/internet bill down to about $25/month, and I keep the premium channels?)
Thanks in advance, World Overlords.

Alarmists are in a dilemma…
Alarmists’ first CAGW global warming estimates went as high as 10C by 2100, which was simply ridiculous and generated peals of laughter from anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of science..
To maintain a modicum of “credibility” and to prevent the CAGW hypothesis from quickly being disconfirmed by estimates exceeding reality by more than 2 standard deviations, alarmist quickly started moving the goal posts lower: 6C, 5C, 4C, 3C, 2C, and now 1.5C
The problem alarmists now face is that their original proposal was to waste $76 trillion (UN estimate) to keep global warming below 2C by 2100…. As it stands now, using the revised low-end estimate of 1.5C, we could waste ZERO $trillion and still be below the original target of below 2C…
Now the alarmists’ agenda is to create the impression that even 1.5C of global warming by 2100 is catastrophic… The only problem is that during past Warming Periods (Holocene Maximum, Minoan, Roman and Medieval) global temps were all 1.5C~2C warmer than now, and represented periods of tremendous economic, population, technological and societal achievement and growth, coupled with the additional problem of CO2 emissions not being responsible for past Warming Periods…
Alarmists also face the additional problem of trying to convince people that the tremendous benefits of: increased crop yields, global greening, increased arable land in Northern latitudes, increased tree-line, less severe winters, earlier springs, longer growing seasons, less frost loss, increased plant drought resistance from higher CO2 levels, slightly warmer global temps and the CO2 fertilization processes are all somehow……catastrophic benefits (a dichotomy of terms)….
For all intents and purposes, CAGW has already been shown to be a disconfirmed hypothesis. NONE of CAGW’s catastrophic projections have come even CLOSE to reflecting reality and already exceed the criteria necessary for formal hypothetical disconfirmation under the rules of the scientific method.
To paraphrase Nietzsche– CAGW IS DEAD…

You are correct of course. But the uninformed masses don’t know that.
The Alarmists can simply keep repeating their talking points with the aid of the media and get their way. An empirical basis for their claims is not necessary and that’s our problem.
It’s a war of perception and we’re loosing.

Paleological temperature records and the Stefan-Boltzman law tells us that there are no tipping points to a higher temperature regime from the present regime. Any increases in temperature from present require the negative feedback of an inordinate increase in forcing. The Quaternary glaciation shows a two state climate regime with the major portion of time spent in the cool phase. “Scientists” espousing tipping points to a warmer regime are simply crackpots with Jim Hansen being the shining example of disgrace to the profession.

There is no evidence of “positive feedbacks” increasing warming in an inter-glacial period.
The only evidence of “positive feedbacks” are for cooling from an inter-glacial or warming from a glacial of which the only one to concern us is “runaway cooling”.
As for temperatures – the surface temperature is now just a figment of someone’s grant-induced imagination.

“Jim Hansen being the shining example of disgrace to the profession.”
I couldn’t agree with you more. I completely lost respect for him when he tried to defend is late 1980’s model showing a “Scenario A” described to Congress as – in his own words – a “business as usual” scenario that turned out out to be wildly inaccurate. In response to Crichton and Michaels saying that this model was 600% off, Hansen tried to represent that his original paper described scenario A as a “worst case” scenario by claiming that the paper referred to it as being “on the high side of reality.”
I went back and found that paper. Hansen took his own words out of context. What he said in the paper was that because scenario A relied on continued exponential growth of GHG emissions, that it “must eventually be on the high side of reality” when resource constraints started limiting that exponential growth, i..e way down the road in the future – not in the first 20 years.
Maybe more significantly, he tried to defend the accuracy of the paper by simply comparing the actual temperatures in the 20 years since the model was published to “scenario B” which assumed only linear growth in GHG emissions, but he made no effort to show that the CO2 emissions during that interval were limited to linear growth. The measured temperatures were actually bouncing around between what was predicted for scenario B and for scenario C which assumed GHG emissions reductions beyond anything then even contemplated. This over the interval where the U.S. was going through rapid growth through the 90s during the Clinton administration, and also the early 2000s (with the exception of the dot-com bust that lasted about a year). China and India were were also ramping up their industrialization. So a mere comparison between the scenario B temps and the measured temps over the next 20 years was a useless comparison.
Moreover, this was Hansen’s model and as I recall he was sill working for NASA at the time he was trying to defend it. In the late 1980s he couldn’t have known what the future emissions were going to be, or how many volcanic eruptions there would have been, but in the early 2000s we certainly did. All he had to do was dust the model off the shelf and use the historical data as an input to the model (without changing any of the parameters) and see how accurate it was in retrospect. He didn’t do that. I can only assume that it is because he knew the effort would be a miserable failure.

Every temperature reconstruction on geological time scales I’ve seen shows that current temperatures are well below the maximum or “optimum” for the current interglacial, and also above the minimum. They show that the current interglacial is cooler than the last one, and actually cooler than all but maybe one in the last ice age. See this link, for example. https://kaiserscience.wordpress.com/earth-science/weather/ice-ages/
If there was such a tipping point on temperatures during interglacials, wouldn’t we have seen evidence of it in this record? Obviously, no climate scientist has actually demonstrated the existence of such tipping points, unless I missed an apocalypse or two while I was studying in college. There doesn’t seem to be any, well – scientific – evidence of the existence of tipping points anywhere near the temperatures we’re at.
So I tend to think that the best evidence there is that climate alarmism is NOT about science, is when the climate “scientists” babble about tipping points.

Isn’t it about time these nincompoops were called ‘climate variability deniers’??
After all, the one thing that 100% of the human race should be able to agree about is that climate is variable.
The discussion then comes to what constitutes natural variability:
1. in a year.
2. In a decade.
3. In a century.
4. In a millennium.
Really, one year being 3C above average is just one year. Unless it stays like that for 10 years or more, it’s just climate variability.
Denying that variability exists is the greatest crime of all, in my book…….

Let’s keep reminding everyone that this original global warming doomsday prediction from 1969 has already been passed.
And nothing has happened. Sea level rise and temperature rise for the entire period were comparable with 1915 to 1945.
Here is the specific alarmist warning from the 1969 Whitehouse memo:
“There is widespread agreement that carbon dioxide content will rise 25 percent by 2000.
This could increase the average temperature near the earth’s surface by 7 degrees Fahrenheit. This in turn could raise the level of the sea by 10 feet. Goodbye New York. Goodbye Washington, for that matter.”
How long can they keep postponing the same prediction?
It’s like deja vu, all over again.http://motls.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/nixon-was-told-sea-level-would-rise-by.html

“shifting debate onto whether it will be possible to turn down the global thermostat.” That’s the debate all along. Can humans actually control the temperature on earth?
Steven King defined a successful writer as one who made a lot of money. If he makes a lot of money pushing climate change, there’s no reason to change since that makes him successful by his own definition. He’s well-suited to climate change pushing—it’s all about the money.

During the Mesozoic, a period lasting over 180 million years, earth’s average temperature was 8 to 12 C higher than today, CO2 was more than ten times higher than now, yet life flourished pole to pole, and a tipping point was never reached. These facts are not in dispute, nor are they ever considered relevant by the Disasters-R-Us crowd.

Richard :
I think it would be more correct to point out that the temperature was on AVERAGE 8-12 C higher. I mention this because the tropics were no hotter than today, or only slightly so. The average was spread into the Arctic Ocean where crocs roamed. It is obvious that there is a thunderstorm feedback that prevents the wet tropics from running the sea temperature above 32 C. So the only way for the average to rise is to bring the cold regions up. In the case of the Arctic the ocean reached something like 20 C.

We….as organized countries and political economies….are way past the tipping point in terms of the number, influence, budget-clout of people who now depend on paychecks and power as bureaucrats, academics, scientists, scribes, lobbyists, activists, institutions, subsidy opportunists, lawyers, prosecutors, elected officials, and various crossbreeds of these. Only spectacular, sensational failures will make even a dent in the self-perpetuating, parasitic machine this has become.

We are also over the tipping point for serviceable debt and productivity. Next up for the world is a massive economic depression caused by high debt. I don’t believe it’s avoidable without ditching the war on CO2.

The best thing about the reaching of a climate tipping point is that by definition it’s a point of no return. This means that any funds to reverse the situation will be a waste of time. Because we are now all doomed we may as well spend the money we were going to spend trying to stop climate change on something useful.

yep, don’t worry, load up the SUV, drive to the beach and fire up the wood grill, crack a cold one, recline back and watch the world end…..
Is it just me or has anyone noticed the more money offered to study this “problem” the more dire the predictions have become?

It seems that from the point of view of the powers that be behind the IPCC, “tipping points” may well be passé – well, at least at this point in time.
Readers may recall that one of the “outcomes” of the Paris gathering of the great and the good was the decision to task the IPCC with providing a report on the implications of a 1.5°C “target”.
It seems that the new, improved Chair of the IPCC was quite happy for the IPCC to take on this task. On Aug. 15 – 18 they’ll be having a “scoping meeting” in Geneva to flush out the options. Rest assured that WG1 participants will be armed with a fascinating 15 page Background Document (pdf) to inspire and/or guide – you may take your pick – their deliberations.
Here are some of my findings of mentions during a perusal of this masterpiece of bureaucratic bafflegab:tipping points – 0
carbon dioxide – 1
other carbon combinations/variants – 19
transform* (a perennial UN fave) – 21sustain* – 37
global – 41
1.5°C – 62
Amazing, eh?!

Climate alarmism is tied to pension fund asset value.
Thats why they need to keep producing these alarmist articles, to keep the value of assets tied to climate change high. Thats why we hear about 2030 and 2050, when the pensions will mature.
They cant backtrack now because pension funds all around the world will collapse.

A new word is added to the vocabulary of fright: “overshoot” as in:
“The future debate about temperature targets will be about overshoot.”
But no, mate, the future debate will be about how to undo the damage brought on by 4 decades of scaremongering.

OK, fine, I like to see more than one side of a debate. You deniers realize you better be right? Sorry, I suspect your honesty. You are either whistling past your own grave yard or are paid shills. If your are wrong, you will be the first to go to the guillotines when it becomes obvious that we’ve past the point of no return. Sure the oceans can absorb heat for a 1000+ years. Arctic Methane is going to kill you.
[??? .mod]

@ MarkW:
I trust that Mr. Turner is one of the “illiterati,” rather than someone in a position of authority, knowledge OR experience. As such, I responded to him as an uninformed individual, rather than as an influential member of the “Climate Liberation Fanatical Front (CLiFF).”
His outburst was nothing more than a heart-felt (if unfounded), emotional (if unfounded) rant directed at a (perceived) threat; I responded in kind.

There is no evidence that the oceans are warming.
The myth of arctic methane (why the capitalization there?) has been refuted multiple times.
Face it. There is not a shred of evidence to support your religion.
PS: What about the 10’s of thousands who have already died because of anti-CO2 policies? Don’t you and your co-religionists bear any responsibility there?

I have difficulty deciding if this comment is meant to be sarcastic. I guess not. Since it’s really not very warm out these days, I’m happy to accept Mr. Turner’s ‘bet’ and raise him by one firing squad.

“[Y]ou will be the first to go to the guillotines when it becomes obvious that we’ve past (sic) the point of no return. Sure the oceans can absorb heat for a 1000+ years.”
Think that through a little more carefully. No hurry – you have plenty of time to figure it out.

. I am sorry if this seems pessimistic but so far in spite of the caterwauling of AGWers the unstated truth is that temperature change has been GOOD for the world. The IPCC admitted this. Up to 1.5C they said was positive but they don’t admit how positive it is. We know now that agricultural productivity has been boosted by at least 20% by the CO2 we’ve put in during the last 50 years. Satellites prove this and peer-reviewed scientific articles show this. Not that we’d need that. Greenhouses for decades have been using enhanced CO2 to generate double the productivity up to 1400ppm of CO2. So, does it take a couple science studies to show that boosting co2 would up plant productivity?
During this 1.3C or whatever they want to claim from the last 200 years of civilization, life has gotten incredibly better for humans. Study after study shows more people die in the cold than the warmth and that whatever incredibly small and irrelevant effects of warmer temperatures they describe as the “damage already occurring” it is trivial compared to the gains we’ve gotten from improved weather and co2.
We are told of islands that will sink and all kinds of “effects” but ask someone to name these effects and you’ll get a bunch of completely confusing nonsense. If you say well, the co2 we’ve put in has generated massive improved agriculture which has saved millions of people’s lives you will get stunned disbelief and demialism. They will deny that has happened. That it is insignificant. Really? 20% increase in productivity of plants? Trivial? This 1.5C is so much crap. It was 2.0C and we’ve seen the effects of global warming are far less than they originally thought so it is more likely 4,0C that you’d see the negatives they are projecting for 1.5C.
It was a couple years ago when the AGWers realized that they would never hit the 2.0C change from 200 years ago so they worked to change the effects becoming negative from 2.0 to 1.5 because they knew the sensitivity was no way going to get them to 2.0C. They conspired to modify the number which is an arbitrary number with no factual basis.
Why are we using 200 years ago when it is incredibly clear that until 1945 no significant amount of co2 was being produced by man? Because if you count temperature change since we’ve been pouring co2 into the atmosphere the number is 0.7C (assuming you use their doubled land temperatures) or 0.35C if you use satellite records (extended to 1945 with reasonable assumptions). Saying that 1.0C is a dangerous number rather than 1.5C is harder case to make to people. How could 1C make such a huge difference? Of course it would also raise the sensitivity to their fudged climate adjustments which double global warming since 1945.

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